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the word ideaousky."-" And pray, sir, what does that mean?""The feminine of ideot, madam." Memoirs of Foote, v. 2, p. 119.

"how

A gentleman in the country who had just buried a rich relation, who was an attorney, was complaining to Foote, who happened to be on a visit with him, of the very great expences of a country funeral, in respect to carriages, hat-bands, scarves, &c. "Why, do you bury your attorneys here?" asked Foote, gravely. "Yes, to be sure we do: how else?"- "Oh! we never do that in London." "No!" said the other, much surprised; do you manage?"-"Why, when the patient happens to die, we lay him out in a room over night by himself, lock the door, throw open the sash, and in the morning he is entirely off."-" Indeed!" said the other in amazement; "what becomes of him?" "Why, that we cannot exactly tell, not being acquainted with supernatural causes. All that we know of the matter is, that, there's a strong smell of brimstone in the room the next morning."

Cooke.

A son-in-law of sir Thomas More having, between jest and earnest, complained that he did not allow his friends to make any profit under him; not that he, for his part, would be guilty of perverting justice, but that he saw no harm in receiving a small present for speaking in behalf of suitors: More applauded the scrupulousness of his conscience, and told him that he should endeavour to provide for him otherwise; " for this one thing I

assure thee," said he, " that if the parties will call for justice at my hands, then though it were my father, whom I love so dearly, stood on one side, and the devil, whom I hate extremely, stood on the other; his cause being just, the devil of me should have his due." "For your sake," he would say to his children, "I will do justice to all men, and leave you a blessing." Macdiarmid's Lives, p. 67.

MARY queen of England. The turn of the English nation for humourous political prints first shewed itself in this reign. An engraving was published representing this queen extremely thin, with many Spaniards hanging to her and sucking her to the bone. Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, p. 16.

SWIFT used to call Whitehaven his second birth-place. When he was about a year old, he was carried thither by his nurse, who, finding it necessary to visit a relation there who was ill, and from whom she expected a legacy, conveyed him on shipboard privately, without the knowledge of his mother or his uncle; and, as is usual among Irish nurses, bore such an affection to the child that she could not think of going without him. He retained his affection of the place till the last, and when one of his friends, who had spent a little time there in 1739, told him, in the spring following, that a merchant from thence, with his son and daughter, were then in Dublin, he invited them to dinner, and shewed them many civilities while they stayed in that city. Swiftiana, p. 160.

Hh

DR JOHNSON being asked by a lady, what love was? replied, "it was the wisdom of a fool, and the folly of the wise." Dryden, being once asked the same question, said, "It was a thing he had often seen, felt, and heard of, but never could understand." Life of Johnson.

ZACHARIAS BOYD, whose bust is to be seen over the entrance to the royal college in Glasgow, while professor in that university, translated the Old and New Testament into Scotch metre; and from a laudable zeal to disseminate religious knowledge among the lower classes of the community, is said to have left a very considerable sum to defray the expence of the said work, which, however, his executors never printed. The following are specimens of that truly elegant translation: He thus introduces the celebrated patriarch Job: There was a man called Job,

Dwelt in the land of Uz.

He had a good gift of the gob,

The same thing happened us.'

Describing Job's determination to persevere in his confidence in the mercy and goodness of the Supreme Being, he says,

Job's wife unto Job did say,

Curse God and die!
Job unto his wife replied,

No, you b-h,-not I!'

Jonah, in the belly of the whale, begins his soliloquy in the following words:

"What house is? here's neither coal nor candle; Where I nothing but fish guts do handle!"

Another passage, he versifies,

"The Lord, unto my Lord, did say,

Sit thou at my right hand,
My Lord unto the Lord replied,

I'd rather chuse to stand.'

But the highest flight of his muse appears in the following beautiful Alexandrine:

And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal?

That would not let the children of Israel, their wives. and their little ones, their flocks and their herds, go out into the wilderness forty days

-to eat the Pascal.'

H. B.

MORE generally found his wit and thorough com mand of temper the most effectual defence against Wolsey, who was to the last degree impatient of contradiction. After a transaction in the house of commons, which had drawn out much bitterness, and which More had strongly opposed as unjust, the cardinal happening to meet with him, complained loudly of his behaviour, and at length exclaimed, "Would to God you had been at Rome, Mr More, when I made you speaker." "Your grace not offended," replied the other, "so would I too; for then I should have seen an antient and famous city, which I have long desired to see.”

Macdiarmid's Lives, p. 48.

Conjugal Love.-A person praising the affections of the widows of Malabar, who burn themselves on a funeral pile in honour of their husbands' memory; Foote observed, "that the women of England claimed a higher honour; for they frequently burned before marriage for their first husband, and afterwards for a second."

Memoirs of Foote, v. 2, p. 112.

MENAGE gives the following advice to authors. "Never send well-written copy for the press, for then masters give it to their apprentices, who make a thousand faults; but, if it is difficult to read, the masters do it themselves."-This advice has been mentioned to several printers by the writer of this, and they have uniformly to a man, been angry. Port Folio of a Man of Letters.

A curious anecdote is told respecting the late inhabitant of Chononceau, belonging to the family of Villeneuve; which, if any thing can justify suicide, certainly does. Monsieur de V*** was cast into prison during the revolution, in common with most of the other respectable people of France, at a moment when every person who had the misfortune to be a nobleman was, if apprehended, led to the guillotine. While in confinement, he reflected that if he shared the fate of many of his fellow prisoners, his fortune would be confiscated and his children become beggars; but that if he should destroy himself, as his children were minors, their inheritance could not legally be seized, and he only shortened the period of his existence by a few hours. These

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